Appliances and Kitchen Gadgets

For 29 delicious years, the Zagat Survey (pronounced zuh-GAT) has been compiling restaurant ratings from user reviews all over the globe to help foodies and regular people find the perfect spot for a first date, romantic meal, or celebration. For considerably fewer years, it has made its renowned services available for mobile phones.

I reviewed the trial version of Zagat To Go (see all downloads) on a BlackBerry Curve (download) and Windows Mobile Palm Treo (download).

Zagat To Go for BlackBerry may have been custom-built for BlackBerry, but features a surprisingly basic home menu that's still stuck in the … Read more

In a study that could make marketing managers and salespeople rub their hands with glee, scientists have used brain-scanning technology to shed new light on the old adage, "You get what you pay for."

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford's business school have directly seen that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that's true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it's exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag.

Specifically, the researchers found that with the higher … Read more

In our day, most dorm rooms got by with makeshift "kitchens" that consisted of a hot plate and maybe a toaster oven. But that was back in the days when space was at a premium because the stereo--and stacks of vinyl LPs--took up half the room.

Now we have "personal" microwave ovens to do the job, some of them barely bigger than a breadbox. The "iWavecube," for example, will heat up frozen pizzas like the best of 'em while occupying under a cubic foot of space and weighing just 12 pounds.

It may not … Read more

Like every year, the Consumer Electronics Show is jam-packed with gadgets, from shiny new cell phones to giant TVs.

But this year, reporters scouring the CES show floor found a few goodies for the foodies too.

CNET News.com's Ina Fried sat down Wednesday with Mark Bolger of Microsoft's surface computing team to see what types of applications the tabletop technology could be used for. One of the ideas they've come up with is a system called Wine Bar that would allow restaurant-goers to select from a restaurant's wine list based on their taste preferences. So … Read more

If you have a caffeine habit that even remotely approaches ours, you've probably given at least a fleeting thought to trading in those Starbucks gift cards for your own espresso machine. And this latest model from De Dietrich is sure to make the idea all the more tempting.

Built-in espresso makers are nothing new, but the DED700X's technology seems to elevate the process to an art form. For starters, it has an LED screen, touch controls, and all kinds of digital indicators to help keep you from messing up. Just imagine: As many venti soy chai lattes as … Read more

While most people in the tech sector are watching what's going on at CES in Las Vegas, some of us still have our eyes on what's going on in the kitchen.

Apartment Therapy's Kitchn blog today points to a half-size dishwasher that could start popping up in apartments around the country. The Smeg dishwasher comes in three sizes, the most interesting of which tops out at just less than 24 inches tall. On the outside, it's a standard, stainless steel appliance. Inside, it's basically like the bottom basket of a regular dishwasher.

This design works … Read more

The Internet fridge I saw at CES doesn't do what I want it to do. It does not know when I am running out of milk. It does not sniff out the moldy cheese hiding behind the mustard to tell me it's time to throw it out. What the Internet fridge does is this: It has a mounting bracket and a power port on its front so you can install fridge-centric devices.

Stay with me here.

Whirlpool makes the refrigerator in question. I really don't expect you're going to buy one. Another company, Data Evolution, makes … Read more

After a long break for the holidays, I returned to work Wednesday to an even longer list of things I'd intended to write about way back in 2007. In the spirit of living up to resolutions for at least the first week of the new year, I'll attempt to get some of those things published in the next few days.

The SideSwipe Mixer Blade is an accessory for stand mixers (which were being pushed hard by retailers over the gift-giving holidays and no doubt turned up under quite a few trees in December). It's a blade similar … Read more

Attention, parents of school-age children. Are you worried about a growing Purell addiction? CleanWell has the hand sanitizer for you.

The San Francisco-based company has come out with an alcohol-free, all-natural hand sanitizer. I got some samples at the ThinkGreen conference last week and my hands have been free of epidemic-causing bacteria ever since.

The company claims it kills Listeria monocytogenes, Candida (we can make it together) albicans, Streptococcus pygenes, and Salmonella enterica. You can't spray it on chicken, but the salmonella killing would be great for kitchen sanitizing. Spray CleanWell on your hands and it kills over 99 … Read more